The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [164]
“Branna?” Salamander said. “Hadn’t you better be going back to the dun? The town gates are closed, but if the banadar walked with you, no doubt they’ll let you in.”
“Oh, ye gods!” Branna was wide awake in an instant. “Neb’s going to worry if I don’t get back.”
“True spoken.” Calonderiel scrambled to his feet. “Here, my lady, allow me to escort you up to the dun. There’s a candle lantern around here somewhere, I think. The rest of us should all get some sleep, anyway. We’ve got an early start on the morrow.”
“Just so.” Gerran turned to Clae. “Come along, lad.”
“A moment more of your time, Captain.” Dallandra stood up and joined them. “Will Tieryn Cadryc be sending his womenfolk back to his dun?”
“He will, truly.”
“How many men can he spare for an escort?”
“Only a few, alas. It’s not like we have the entire warband with us.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Do you think they’ll be in danger?”
“I do, though it’s a hard thing to explain.” Dalla glanced at Calonderiel and changed over to Elvish. “I want them to stay here in Cengarn, but I can’t come right out and tell them I’ve had dweomer omens. Can you think of some rational reason?”
“Yes, and it might even be true.” Calonderiel turned to Gerran and spoke in Deverrian. “The Wise One here is worried now that Honelg knows we’re coming. What if he decided to send a fast-moving squad out to circle around our line of march and try to take the women as hostages? Branna and Galla would make splendid ones, to say naught of the gwerbret’s own sister.”
Gerran muttered a few foul oaths under his breath. “I’ll come back to the dun with you,” he said. “Let’s find the tieryn and suggest that the women stay here. I’m sure that Ridvar won’t begrudge them his hospitality. Clae, you go back to the pavilion and get some sleep.”
Until the others had all left and gotten well out of earshot, neither Dallandra nor Salamander spoke. From the tense way she stood staring into the darkness, he could tell that she had something in mind that she’d rather keep to the pair of them.
“Do you think you can scry without harming yourself?” Dallandra said at last. “Tell me honestly.”
“Yes, it should be safe enough,” Salamander said. “Scrying’s always come to me easily, after all.”
“That’s true, yes. Have you ever seen this Raldd?”
“Not that I know of. He’s probably traveling through dark forest by now anyway.”
“Most likely. What about Sidro? Do you think she’d be somewhere near some light?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I can try.”
They knelt beside the little campfire. Salamander fed in a few twigs and scraps of bark, then used the leap of flame as his focus. Thinking of Sidro made him remember how much he hated her, her and those sharp little eyes of hers that had nearly gotten him killed.
The image built up fast. He was seeing her by the light of a single oil lamp on a stone altar. The flickering glow reflected off the obsidian pyramid with sparks of dark fire, a glitter of blackness darting this way and that. Some of the sparks seemed to nestle gleaming in Sidro’s raven-black hair.
“She’s inside somewhere,” Salamander began, “and I suspect it’s the Inner Shrine. I can see her kneeling before an altar. Behind it is a painting of Alshandra, an oddly realistic picture from the little I can see of it, in the Bardekian style called ’perspective’. Sidro has her arms spread out, and she’s mumbling in the Horsekin tongue.”
“She’s in Zakh Gral?” Dallandra was whispering in a soft monotone, lest she break his concentration. “You’re sure of that?”
Salamander let the vision pull back. Under starlight the fortress spread out.
“Yes, very sure.”
When he returned to Sidro, she was still on her knees and still wrapped in what appeared to be prayer. Since he’d never been inside the shrine, her surroundings faded off into mist as soon as he tried to look at any object